# Mudding a Hackert Corncob Pipe



## Mister Moo

I started out a new cob last week.










I'm going to mud it - right here. Any and all advice from expert cob-mudders is appreciated. It is burned in with 5-6 smokes...










But first I have to smoke a big, fat cigar.


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## Alpedhuez55

Good luck with that. I have never mudded a pipe, but I did order my first Jake Hackert Cob yesterday!!! Hopefully I will have it next week.


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## FiveStar

Wow Dan, that's quite the burn in job you've done there. My 3 cobs, including one Hackert, didn't quite "burn in" that intensely, but rather have built a nice smooth resinous cake over time. Well, come to think of it, one of them does have some spots like yours, but it's filling in slowly with cake (It's my least favorite cob at the moment). Maybe I'm not smokin hard enough? 

I wanna see what folks say here though


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## Mister Moo

FiveStar said:


> Wow Dan, that's quite the burn in job you've done there. My 3 cobs, including one Hackert, didn't quite "burn in" that intensely, but rather have built a nice smooth resinous cake over time. Well, come to think of it, one of them does have some spots like yours, but it's filling in slowly with cake (It's my least favorite cob at the moment). Maybe I'm not smokin hard enough?
> 
> I wanna see what folks say here though


80% of the interior is holding smooth but I always get some kind of deterioration like that shown in the photo. I've had some burn out and some stay like that for years.

I'll give mud a try and let everyone see what happens. I have mudded a number of pipes, all with good results, but never puttied up a cob like this one. I hope one Lusitania will do the job... expensive mud, that.


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## Marine Dad

I also have some small places of burn out in one of my first Hackert cobs. Is some burn out normal with all cobs ?


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## Mister Moo

Marine Dad said:


> I also have some small places of burn out in one of my first Hackert cobs. Is some burn out normal with all cobs ?


I can't explain it, Greg. Maybe some longtime cob expert around here will.

I've had a couple of MMs last for many years and others crap out in a few months. The best of my $4.00 Legends smoked splendidly for four our five years until I broke it. It looked like it was going to last indefinitely. Like this Hackert, some of the interior was highly irregular and some stayed smooth. :dunno:


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## PinkFloydFan

Hi Moo 

I have been mudding all the cobs I have purchased and the 2 MM Ozarks I bought and leave in the car.
Especially down around where the shank enters the bowl and you have a a gap between the bevel of the shank and the sides of the bowl. 

What I have done is take an old tobacco tin and saved up a decent amount of Pipe and cigar tobacco ash. I have about 3/4 of a tin full. 

I dump about a heaping tablespoon on the inside lid of tobacco tin and then make a little crater in the center of the pile with my pinky. (But don't poke so deep you expose the metal tin under the pile. The honey will stick to the metal and makes for a mixing headache and dirty fingers.) 

Next I grab the bottle of squeeze honey from the closet and add just 2 or 3 decent drops into the crater.. You can always add more.

I use the wooden end of a match to start folding the ash onto and into the drops of honey. I keep adding drops of honey and folding it in until I get a nice semi-sticky putty, Add ash or honey as needed to get a nice workable putty consistancy. You will be surprised how much ash the honey will draw up before it is dry.
( Keep it a little on the dryer side, or it will stick to your fingers, during the next step.) . this usually yields a nice marble sized ball of it. 


Then I break off small pieces and roll them into little cigar shaped bits and using a new wooden match place and stuff them into every like empty spot on the bottom of the bowl. ( I place a doubled up PC in the shank so I dont get any inside by accident. )

After I have shaped and filled everything I want. I then actually take just some dry ash from the tin and add a pipe spoon full of it on top of what I just puttied.. I tamp lightly and then cover the bowl with my finger and shake the ask all round the bowl. It sticks to any moisture left in the putty and coats the whole bowl grey. Do this once or twice.

I move the PC in and out and make sure the path is nice and clear.

I remove the PC and let the pipe and putty cure overnight. 

The next day I gently blow through the shank with a few simple breaths.
Usually a few ash puffs will come out. But everything that needs to be stuck is stuck in.

Pack your newly mudded BOWL with a nice leaf of your choice and GET BUSY.

After the first bowl you may see some of your dottle sticking to bottom. 
Dont dig it out... Just tap it on your palm to remove it. 

Whatever dottle remains , I simply light a match and puff , then tamp the dottle ash in.

On the three MM cobs I have, the bottoms are beautiful and look like carved briar verses a shank stuck into a corncob. The Ozarks came out the same way.

No burnouts. No bad taste and a great result.

I think the next time I do this.. I will do a pictorial of the whole step by step process. 

Good Luck Sir. 


Vin


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## Jack Straw

Great description!


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## commonsenseman

I would LOVE to see more pictures. I'd like to do this to all of my cobs.


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## FiveStar

WOW! This is a great tutorial Vinny! This whole thread just became stick-worthy between Moo and yourself. Can't wait to see some pics of this process. I just bought an ozark today, and I'm in love with how well it smokes for a 5 dollar pipe. It burns flakes as well as any of my flake driven briars. At that price, I can afford to screw thangs up with the honey-mud....

Honestly though, in all the cobs I have, I haven't really seen too much need to do the mud thing. My Fave does have quite a burnt up shank where it enters the bowl, but since I mostly smoke flakes it doesn't seem to effect the performance at all. The walls of the bowl don't have actually formed a nice smooth cakeish coating and hasn't burned out or anything, but in the case of a good smoking cob where pits and burned spots are an issue, I can see where this "pipe putty" could be a real asset. 

Thanks for this thread! I'm gonna keep my eyes on the developments here....


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## paracite

Wow sounds good, I look forward to seeing a tutorial for this. 

It'll also be cool to see the process of mudding pipes. I have never done or seen it. 

I smoke my MM's slow so I never had an instance of burnout yet. The inside is now very black, I'm sure it's not cake, just the walls got charred so much that it is the carbon layer that would prolong its life haha.


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## Mister Moo

PinkFloydFan said:


> Hi Moo
> 
> Good Luck Sir. Vin


I was going to make the first mud-run with spit, not honey. Have you had bad luck with plain old gob for a cob, V?

I started my cigar ash pile with an OpusX last night - the new perfecto - very nice; I will add a Parti Lusitania today. I figure that'll be enough for a primer coat.


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## PinkFloydFan

Mister Moo said:


> I was going to make the first mud-run with spit, not honey. *Have you had bad luck with plain old gob for a cob, V?*
> 
> I started my cigar ash pile with an OpusX last night - the new perfecto - very nice; I will add a Parti Lusitania today. I figure that'll be enough for a primer coat.


Hi Moo.

The first cob I bought was some POS not made by MM. Like $3 and picked from a box at the local cig shop..
After 1 bowl I got a little aggressive and accidentally poked a hole in the bottom of the bowl. ( Not a hardwood bottom like the MM's have..)

It was then that I did a little reading and bought a few real cobs from MM.

I am sure "spit" may work. But Honey is stickier, less nasty ( IMHO) and "honey curing" is something we have all heard about. 
I don't know that I would personally like the concept of a "spit" based mud resting in the bottom of my bowls.. verses a nice honey and ash mud putty.

If You try the spit. Let us know how it works.

I'll stick to the honey.. LOL 
(Hmm. I imagine "corn syrup" would work well too. )..

Peace,

Vin


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## Mister Moo

Honey it will be on #1 - pix to follow according to your method. I am finishing up a Monte #2 and the Parti Lusitania is history. Add that to the Opus from the other day and I have a decent pile of ash.

The mud-saga continues....


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## WyoBob

A couple of weeks ago, I mudded my Legend, rounding out the bottom and it worked very well. I used water and cigar ash. The water/ash sets up very hard. I mixed it in my ashtray and had to soak it to clean it up. I think, as long as the mud stays dry (which seems to be no problem with my cobs), the mud job will last a long time.

When I get around to it, I'll smooth out the bottom in my Country Gentleman.

I have 25-30 bowls through both MM cobs and have no burns like in the pictures. They look new, but black.

I also used mud on a Savinelli 623 ebay pipe that had two pretty bad cracks in the bowl running vertically from the draft hole upwards. The mud has held up well and the bowl is caking up nicely.

Good luck.


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## Mister Moo

So it'll be water-mud on cob #2. Room for comparison. 

You got any photos to tack on here, guys?


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## Steel Talon

FWIW,

I perfer cigar ash (for density) mixed with a bit of distilled water (because I always have it on hand) over spit, honey, or corn syrup. I can never get the honey just right,it becomes a mess for me.

For tools I like using small screw drivers; Some drivers are meant to be for this job it seems...I will also fabricate putty tools from cottage cheese containers etc.

The key to mudd is to let it dry and harden completely let it sit for a week before using.

Peace and good Karma
Tal~


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## Mister Moo

Pictures coming after the Indy 500 is over. 

Mud began by mixing ash and three "drops" of honey with two fat toothpicks but I found it difficult to work with at some point so, Semper Gumby, I merged methods - I just gobbed into the slightly lumpy mud clump a few times and it became almost viscous after a minute or two. I adjusted it to almost-putty with some saved ash - be SURE to set some ash aside for thickening - and all was well.

I've always used spit to make mud into a thicker-than-paste application but the honey was easy to start with and the field-expedient spit adjust-on-the-fly rendered a precise consistency.

One glop packed neatly into the base around the shank; it tamped in with the butt-end of the fat toothpick; several more glops filled the chamber walls to a very smooth finish with a little toothpick artistry.

The pipe is drying outside in the sun. It's hot out.

Bless the Vets, past, present and future. Happy Memorial Day.

dn/mm
USA 1971-1977

EDIT:









added honey









stirred in honey and fine-tuned with spit









puttied in with a fat toothpick









Drying out - see photo in post #1, same view









A few hours dry time


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## BigRay023

Great post and pics! I think I will start practicing by filling in the gap between shank/bowl at the bottom of my cheapo cobs. My mud wont be as top shelf as a Lusti or Opus. But I got a couple Monte #4 and PSD4 layin around that should do the trick!:smoke2:


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## Diodon nepheligina

Just mudded in a couple cobs with nice results. Cigar ash and water, and as Moo has suggested, a bit of spit to get it just right. But this prompts a short story that may amuse some of you...

I was sitting on my patio on a Saturday morning and noticed a mud dauber wasp building her nest on the ceiling. She was dutifully flying back and forth to the lake I back up to to gather up mandibles-full of mud and bringing back these little balls to lovingly work and smooth into the elongated brood chambers for her little ones. I watched her work for awhile and it occurred to me, those nests are quite hard once the mud dries. Maybe I should go get some of the mud she is using to mud in my cobs. The lake is only across the back yard, after all. Then again, maybe it was her spit that was the secret ingredient. I don't think she would be very cooperative in my endeavor. I can just see how that would play out, with me trying to milk the saliva from a pissed off mud dauber like I was milking a rattlesnake.

In my final hare-brained version, I could just let her bring the stuff back to shape and smooth her nest chambers and when she flies off to get more I could just steal that bit from her nest and pack it in the bottom of my cob. 

So far all I have done is use cigar ash, water, and a little of my own spit. 

But I am going to try out her special mud on one of them. 

If only her insect brain could function at a high enough level, I know she would be saying to herself "WTF!" every time she returns to her nest with another mouthful of mud, only to find all of the work from her previous trip removed...Of course, that story ends with her noticing me plastering the inside of my pipe with her mud and flying down to sting the S**T out of me right on the end of my nose.


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## laloin

pardon my ignorance, but what does mudding do for a pipe?
troy


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## Diodon nepheligina

laloin said:


> pardon my ignorance, but what does mudding do for a pipe?
> troy


Start at the beginning of this thread and read through and check out the pictures...you'll get the idea. It is to fill in/smooth over pits, cracks, and other flaws inside the bowl.


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## RJpuffs

Diodon nepheligina said:


> Just mudded in a couple cobs with nice results. Cigar ash and water, and as Moo has suggested, a bit of spit to get it just right. But this prompts a short story that may amuse some of you...
> 
> I was sitting on my patio on a Saturday morning and noticed a mud dauber wasp building her nest on the ceiling. She was dutifully flying back and forth to the lake I back up to to gather up mandibles-full of mud and bringing back these little balls to lovingly work and smooth into the elongated brood chambers for her little ones. I watched her work for awhile and it occurred to me, those nests are quite hard once the mud dries. Maybe I should go get some of the mud she is using to mud in my cobs. The lake is only across the back yard, after all. Then again, maybe it was her spit that was the secret ingredient. I don't think she would be very cooperative in my endeavor. I can just see how that would play out, with me trying to milk the saliva from a pissed off mud dauber like I was milking a rattlesnake.
> 
> In my final hare-brained version, I could just let her bring the stuff back to shape and smooth her nest chambers and when she flies off to get more I could just steal that bit from her nest and pack it in the bottom of my cob.
> 
> So far all I have done is use cigar ash, water, and a little of my own spit.
> 
> But I am going to try out her special mud on one of them.
> 
> If only her insect brain could function at a high enough level, I know she would be saying to herself "WTF!" every time she returns to her nest with another mouthful of mud, only to find all of the work from her previous trip removed...Of course, that story ends with her noticing me plastering the inside of my pipe with her mud and flying down to sting the S**T out of me right on the end of my nose.


Try hanging the pipe from the ceiling, maybe the wasp will "mud" it for ya :clap2:


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## Diodon nepheligina

RJpuffs said:


> Try hanging the pipe from the ceiling, maybe the wasp will "mud" it for ya :clap2:


If only....what a nice trick that would be! :eyebrows:


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## CWL

Anyone give thought to using simple plaster to mud a corncob? That's what MM uses to smooth out and fill their cobs when they make 'em. Inert, porous and it will turn black after a smoke.

That's what I was thinking to use after taking a good look at the few MMs I own.


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## Mister Moo

The mud was a little fragile as usual. Lots of maybes... too thick, too wet, too soon. About 1/3 of it scraped out after a couple of smokes; the bottom fill stayed intact.

I am moving on to a mud of ground activated charcoal and a bit of grape jelly as suggested elsewhere by Will.


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## flint fireforge

i have about 12 corn cob pipe's that need repairs i might try this....on a side note i have use a bit of gorilla glue on the bottom of sum burned thru pipe and saw dust in the bowl pretty thick...it seems to work pretty good depending on the type of wood adds different flavors ...but i only use a dab on bottom cuz it expands quiet a bit and i make sure the saw dust is thick so as there no chance to burn thru and inhale the vapor  ....i think ill try yalls idea's but with fine saw dust....my name is also will so as not to be confused just call me crazywill lol


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## FLIPFLOPS_AND_SHADES

This thread has given me excellent ideas to work with. I am going to use these methods and hopefully "protect" my cob from future wear.

They should make this thread a sticky, if it isn't already.

2 cents.


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## Mister Moo

Pipe-master WillH in another forum described excellent results from grinding up fishtank filter activated charcoal and mixing it with the least possible amount of grape jelly. Thereafter known as the fishshit fix, Will said it was the best mud ever. I may fool with that for patching another cob or filling a low-bottomed briar next week.


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